Unite & Equip

If you’ve been keeping up with our Newsletters, you’ve had a lot of extra time on your hands (because there hasn’t been a new one for months!)!  I’m embarrassed by how long it’s been since we got one out to the Team, but I assure you that this is not due to nothing worth reporting.  Quite contrary, I/we can’t keep up, and thus… the newsletter has been horribly neglected.  That all said, I humbly ask for your grace and am excited to get this out! 

So what have we been doing?  Growing… our Team, our Huddles, our events, our opportunities, and our impact!  It has been both amazing and a bit overwhelming at the same time… in a good way.  As we continue to grow, we are continuing to seek the Lord’s will in how to best steward our opportunities and meet the needs of this growth.  As our leadership has done this, He has pointed us towards a few objectives, outlined in the Strategic Plan, which combined with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, will direct our efforts for the immediate future. 

If you have not done so already, I invite each of you to review the Strategic Plan, which can be downloaded below this article or off our Home Page.  Implementing some of these changes will take a little time… it’s a big ship to turn, but we’re excited about it!  It will also take some gifted volunteers, and in the Lord’s time, growing our staff and the financial base to support that.  For those with limited time, I’m including the cliff notes below for Unite & Equip:

Unite Nationally- While we celebrate our ministry Team’s growth in size, we yearn to see its growth in unity and focus.  This is certainly a challenge with Teammates all over the US and the world, but by further developing our online community and resources, we feel we can do this so much better.  We will continue to develop the infrastructure to fuel this, and invite you to stay connected with your Teammates as opportunities come available.  Step one in this is certainly our Yahoo Group (see next Aid Station article).

Unite Locally- We appreciate the value and necessity of relationships, both for evangelism and discipleship.  Huddles (adult chapters) provide this opportunity.  Our number of Huddles continues to grow as does their activity and outreach.  We want to see this continue and are taking active steps to equip Huddle Leaders and Huddles to be blessed and successful.

Equip the Team- We appreciate the amazing resource that the Lord is bringing together through the above... a united Team of His servants in our community.  We want to steward that by helping equip our members to effectively share their faith in Jesus Christ through endurance sports.  As such, we are developing the Endurance Ministry Institute (EMI), which is charged with doing this through local conferences and online resources (photo above is of the 1st EMI conference this past February... athletes getting equipped).

So there you have it… Unite & Equip, a drum you’ll hear me beating often.  As mentioned above, to do this will take your involvement and your resources (time, talent, and treasure).  Will you continue to join us striving to accomplish our vision and mission?  I pray so and that the Lord would continue to bless your ministry in amazing ways!

For His Glory!
Chris